Judge dismisses Wausau case on Maine border agreement

Maine residents voted to become a village in December 2015 and in late 2016 a judge ruled that a lawsuit with Wausau could not strip Maine of its village status. The village hall is shown here on February 2017.(Photo: Nora G. Hertel/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin)Buy Photo

WAUSAU - A judge has dismissed one of two taxpayer-funded legal disputes that involve the village of Maine and the city of Wausau.

Marathon County Circuit Court Judge Jill Falstad, in her third ruling against the city since November, dismissed a case Wausau filed against the Wisconsin Department of Administration. Wausau challenged the state's decision to approve a cooperative boundary agreement among Maine, the town of Texas and the village of Brokaw.

The boundary agreement outlines a plan to manage Brokaw's debt and dissolution as a village. Since the 2012 closure of its local paper mill, Brokaw's challenges proved expensive.

Maine and Texas have both taken steps that guard their tax base from annexations. Maine incorporated into a village, and Texas' southern edge is now separated from Wausau, as laid out in the boundary agreement.

The agreement turned over to Maine some of Texas' land bordering Wausau. That transfer of land, called an attachment, effectively blocked Wausau from future annexations along part of the city's northern border.

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BORDER BATTLE: The town of Texas transferred land (bordered in red) to the village of Maine in 2016, blocking Wausau annexation in the area. Landowners who wanted to
join the city are upset. And Wausau challenged the border change in court.(Photo: USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin)

"Wausau argued that it is 'aggrieved' (by the state's decision)," Falstad wrote in her decision June 9, "because the cooperative plan affects its ability to annex territory from the town of Texas, affects its extraterritorial zoning and plat approval authority and could impact its contract with the village of Brokaw to provide water services.

"However, all of these claimed injuries are hypothetical and speculative," she wrote.

Wausau also sued the village of Maine in early 2016, claiming it violated the open meetings law as it made plans to deal with Brokaw's insolvency and to incorporate into a village.

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Wausau City Hall.(Photo: USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin)

Falstad ruled in November on part of the open meetings lawsuit and refused to strip Maine's village status. And in May she ruled that Wausau cannot annex any of Maine's land.

Wausau has spent nearly $200,000 on the two lawsuits. Maine and Texas had spent near $90,000 combined as of mid-May.

The open meetings case is ongoing. Falstad permanently dismissed the Wausau case against the Department of Administration last week.

"Wausau brought this action in an attempt to prevent three neighboring municipalities from entering into a boundary change agreement among themselves," Falstad wrote. "Then, in an attempt to foil the motion to dismiss (the case) filed by two of those municipalities, Wausau argued that it did not actually need to give those municipalities notice of this action and that they had no automatic right to participate in the review proceedings. None of that is right."